CHICAGO — Newly revealed “insider” evidence of fraudulent claims, bounty programs, obstruction of justice and efforts at defrauding asbestos bankruptcy trusts warrants amending a judgment dismissing Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims against a law firm and attorneys, pipe manufacturer J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. told a federal judge in Illinois.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A patent holding company forfeited its argument that a Washington federal judge erred in the construction of a claim phrase in a patent dispute over a network traffic manager patent by failing to bring up the construction argument earlier, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held April 17.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio federal judge on April 16 granted summary judgment to NetChoice LLC, an internet trade association, but denied summary judgment to the Ohio attorney general in NetChoice’s suit seeking to enjoin enforcement of an Ohio law that requires parental consent for minors under age 16 to access certain social media platforms, finding that the act “fails to pass constitutional muster and is constitutionally infirm.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — One day after ousted members of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny an application filed by President Donald J. Trump and other federal government officials to overturn a split District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling vacating a stay of their reinstatements to the boards, arguing the removal decisions were hasty and unprecedented, the federal government in an April 16 reply brief doubled down its stance, stating that Article II of the of the U.S. Constitution “vests the ‘executive Power’—'all of it’—in the President alone” to fire leaders of executive agencies.

SAN FRANCISCO — A panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 16 affirmed a lower court’s ruling in a mold and moisture damage coverage dispute finding that a contractor violated the terms of an insurance policy by incurring more than $1 million in repair costs without first seeking consent from an insurer.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Issuing a unanimous reversal and accompanying concurrence in a dispute concerning what is necessary to state an Employee Retirement Income Security Act prohibited transaction claim involving a service provider, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 17 ruled that a certain exemption is not a claim element that a plaintiff must negate but rather an affirmative defense for which the burden falls on the defendant.

MIAMI — A Florida appeals panel on April 16 affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of a plaintiff’s third-party beneficiary breach of contract lawsuit against a lender-placed insurer, agreeing with the lower court that the plaintiff lacked standing to sue the insurer because there was no clear or manifest intent of the contracting parties that the policy primarily and directly benefit the plaintiff.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it held that that multiple claims in a company’s patent related to wireless power transfer were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said April 16, affirming the board’s findings over the objections of the patent holder.